I thought divorce at 33 meant failure—until I reinvented my life in Amsterdam

"I felt like a new person, free from expectations and from the life I once thought I wanted."

My marriage ended in February 2019, and by April, I had three months in Europe loosely mapped out. The plan was to spend the last four weeks of my adventure in Amsterdam to connect with my Dutch roots. My father is from the Netherlands, and during past trips to visit my Opa and Oma (Dutch for Grandpa and Grandma), I had always wondered what living in Amsterdam might feel like, but I had never been courageous enough to find out.

The closest I came to moving to Amsterdam was during a half-assed job search when I was 27. Back then, I was launching a relationship with my soon-to-be husband. I sent out no applications. I followed no leads. I shelved that dream and followed a conventional life path because it had felt safer at the time. Now here I was, 33, and navigating, instead, the murky waters of divorce.

I felt ashamed, awash in failure, and grieving the death of an idea that I had for my life. I had rushed into a marriage with a “nice on paper” man, but he hadn’t been the right one. I thought that’s what I was supposed to do in my late 20s: get married. I’d better partner up if I didn’t want to end up alone, I thought. But five years later, everyone around me was married and having kids, and I was starting over, reinventing myself and my future. And now, I was left to find myself all over again. In Europe. Alone.